Tropical Storm Patty

On October 11 at 11: 00 a.m. EDT the National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced the formation of tropical depression sixteen (TD16) northeast of the Bahamas. Just fifteen minutes later, at 1515 UTC (11:15 a.m. EDT) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this true-color image of the intensifying depression, which would be dubbed Tropical Storm Patty before the end of the day. Although an eye cannot be seen, strong storms around the center of the system cast visible shadows on lower clouds. This indicates the storm is generating a large mass of deep convection.

On Friday morning, Oct. 12, Patty was drifting at 3 mph (6 km/h) south-southwestward near the Bahamas and was already weakening. Tropical Storm Patty had maximum sustained winds near 40 mph (65 km/h), and the center was located near 25.1 N lat and 72.5 W long, or about 230 miles (375 km) east-northeast of the central Bahamas. At 2100 UTC (5:00 p.m. EDT) the NHC downgraded Patty to tropical depression status. It had hung onto tropical storm status for only about 24 hours.

The final advisory on Patty was issued by the NHC at 1500 UTC (11:00 a.m. EDT) on October 20. At that time, the storm had lost all characteristics of a tropical cyclone. At that time the remnants of Patty were located near 24.8 N lat, 72.6 W long, and was moving west-southwest slowly. Maximum sustained winds were near 30 mph (45 km/h). The storm dissipated completely later that same day.